Saturday, September 22, 2007

THE NEW TYRANNY

Historically we have condemned the totalitarian state as hell on Earth. We have feared and fought evil dictators to the losses of many lives. We have sacrificed much for freedom and brag whenever we can about how much we cherish and enjoy it. Sure, we often take it for granted. That is only natural. Animals get used to good times and think they will last forever like the sun. Maybe this the reason we are not objecting to a new form of totalitarianism that has risen like an ogre from our midst. We should know the ogre well. We gave birth to it.

This new dictatorial system is our baby grown gargantuan. It permeates our daily lives and has spread its tentacles around the world. Having become so familiar to us, it goes by different names: Big Business, the International Market, and the Global Economy. We may call it Megacorp—the big fat giant that controls the world. The puppet master that pulls the strings on every political figurehead on the planet. Together with its financial vizier, the International Monetary Fund, it controls the world.

We like to think we have real power with our votes, our placards, our letters to government, our marches in the streets. Yeah. We also dream of going to heaven when we die. We are as unwilling to accept death as an eternal dreamless sleep as we are to accept that Megacorp runs our lives, that its propaganda machine control our minds, that we have no real freedom. We think do but we do not. Freedom to mouth off means little when we continue to serve the master. We live in a make-believe world like figures in a doll house, totally dependent on the whims of the master who plays us.

Nonetheless, we have the power to cut the strings of the master puppeteer and raise the quality of life on Earth. We have only to stop feeding the monster. Stop buying things. Let the beast go without sustenance long enough and it will do our bidding like the jinni in the lamp. This would require sacrifice but would reap immense rewards. Basically, we would have to give up things, a lot of things, to get what we really need.

If we fail to deprive ourselves willingly for the sake of justice for all, we will suffer severely for the sake of Megacorp. We have the choice. Exist and die as playthings of this new totalitarian master or live free.